


The Function of a Rubber Duck

by StarrAngelofNarnia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Birthday, Deputy Headmaster Snape, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Not Epilogue Compliant, Professor Harry Potter, Professor Snape - Freeform, Severus Snape Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28659699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarrAngelofNarnia/pseuds/StarrAngelofNarnia
Summary: "Nothing seemed abnormal...Until he noticed a very small and very yellow rubber duck."Snape's Birthday
Relationships: Harry Potter & Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall & Severus Snape
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	The Function of a Rubber Duck

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by my one of my teachers in high school who tried to paint himself as a jerk. But we never took him seriously as such. And so we decorated his room with rubber ducks, and labeled all the hand sanitizer in his room as children's tears. And overall, he just really reminded me of Snape. So this was born. 
> 
> Happy Birthday Snape! Even though this would have taken place back in like 2009 when I was just a baby high school freshman. 
> 
> Kudos + Comments = Love

January 9th started out like any other January morning. The snow was falling, the wind was blowing, and it was the type of weather that most students had little desire to go out in, making the inside of the castle busier and louder than normal. Severus Snape was one of the first to arrive in the great hall, as usual. Headmistress Minerva McGonagall had already arrived.

“Good morning Severus,” she greeted him with a smile. “If I recall correctly, I believe today is an important day for you.”

Severus gave her the side-eye. “Perhaps it is. Or perhaps it is just another day. Forty-nine years is hardly impressive when there are people long gone much more deserving of the longevity of life.” Minerva sighed. The Deputy Headmaster had still not recovered from the many traumas of his younger life. Having been able to keep his position of administration after the war had helped him to mature and to make some progress in healing. But he still had a long way to go, if he ever truly recovered the trauma at all.

The great hall still reflected the stars of the early winter morning as students and faculty began to trickle in for breakfast before the day started. The Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, Harry Potter, was one of the last to trickle in. Though he didn’t usually sit next to the deputy head master, he sat himself down in the empty chair next to him. “Good morning Professor,” Harry greeted unusually calm. “How is your morning going?”

“I’m here, so I suppose it’s going well.” As it were, he was preparing to leave the great hall anyway, so he would not have to entertain any shenanigans Potter had in mind. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Professor Potter, some of us like to be in our classrooms on time,” he bit out toward the young man. He stood up and made his way out of the great hall and down toward the dungeons where his Potions classroom and office was. When he opened the door to his office, nothing seemed abnormal. Until he noticed a very small and very yellow rubber duck perched on top of a jar of wormwood. 

At first, he thought nothing of it. Perhaps someone had left their transfiguration homework in his classroom. They’d certainly be missing it later. He picked it up and walked to the back of the room, placing it on a shelf where students would be expected to place their unused items during class. But as he approached, he noticed yet another small duck, but this one was sporting a duck-sized red and gold striped tie. “Bloody Gryffindor,” he scoffed, trying to choke down the inkling of a laugh he felt building in his chest. “Potter thinks it’s funny to leave ducks in my room.” It suddenly made sense why his former-student-turned-colleague had been acting unusual this morning.

He placed the first duck on the shelf next to the second one and set to preparing the room for the day. With a quick dictation spell, he had the recipe for the day’s potion printed on the board and he was ready to open his room to students.

The moment he flung open his door to allow his first class of the day to enter, the hallway went silent. Though people no longer found him as intimidating as he had the reputation of being in his younger years, he was grateful he could still command attention just by appearance alone.

He was starting out the day with Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff fifth years, which was a considerably easy group to teach. The rivalries between these two houses were not nearly as strong so they were more easily managed. Once the students had filed in and taken their seats, he swept across the room to the front to give instructions for the day. It was what Lily had once called a “lab day”, where students would focus on hands-on work instead of listening to lectures or reading from the textbook. The entire block would be dedicated to brewing. But as he approached the front of the room, he noticed the usual piece of chalk was missing from its tray beneath the blackboard. And in its place was a larger, yellowish, duck-shaped piece of chalk. He snatched it quickly and shoved it into the pocket of his robes. The last thing he needed was a disturbance in his class.

He gave the instructions, pointed out where they might find the recipe, and released the students to begin their work. While students scrambled around the room, gathering the ingredients and materials they would need, he observed from the front of the room. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But everybody seemed unusually well behaved…and to say that about Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who were fairly well behaved as it was, the behavior was definitely suspicious.

About fifteen minutes into class, the entire class had pretty much settled into their potions. As he simply observed for a few moments more, he found his mind wandering to how much things had changed since he began his career. The first few years of teaching had been extraordinarily difficult. Many of the older students at Hogwarts his first year teaching, knew him or knew of him from when he had been a student himself. Some of those students his first year had been absolutely terrified of him. Others hated his guts because of whom he had associated with during his time at school. Still others continued to see him as a target for bullying and teasing, despite his new role as an authority. And the first few years, in combination with the agreement he had made with the master Manipulator Albus Dumbledore, required him to be uncharacteristically cruel and distant. So, by the time, Lily’s son made it into his classroom, he wore the mask so well, he often forgot it was just that: a mask.

And there had certainly been other challenges too. One specific challenge, by the name of Remus Lupin, rest his soul, had made for an even tougher year, as he tried to assert his authority without being undermined by his far more approachable peer. And while he knew that the incident between himself and the wolf in his younger years was far more the responsibility of Potter and Black, it had created animosity that had scared even the bravest of his Gryffindor students. And he regretted it, God did he regret it. They had just been children and they certainly didn’t deserve to be victims of his trauma-filled flashbacks as the former marauder did everything in his power to press his buttons.

But despite the trauma, and the long withstanding animosity, he had somehow managed to build a tentative friendship with the son of his childhood best friend once they became colleagues. It started out as more of a one-sided thing, with Harry expressing his praise and gratitude for all the sacrifices he had made over the years. Which gradually turned into bonding over similar childhood traumas, of being abused by the people who were supposed to care for you. Which turned to mentorship, as the boy took on the role of DADA professor. And Severus had to admit, the role fit him well. It was as if he was born to teach. And he was even kind enough to trade places with him every so often, giving Severus the opportunity to share his unique experiences of defense against the dark arts from within its ranks. He truly did admire Harry and was grateful for the somewhat fresh start he had been blessed with once his name was cleared of charges from the war. He had even taken up some healing arts, should he ever want something other than teaching to fall back onto.

The raised hand and voice of a Hufflepuff student brought him back to the present. “Professor Snape, I think I missed a step! Can you come look over my potion please?” With a sigh, he made his way over the girl, looking over her concoction and noting that it was an easy fix, she would just need to reduce the number of stirs on the final step. And seeing how it was nearing the time for assessment anyway, he made his rounds through the classroom, grading each potion, assigning those who had aced it to bottle and store them properly, and adding the names of those who still had not quite gotten it to a list of students who would need a re-do session.

After dismissing the class, he noticed once again, that something was amiss. Next to every newly bottled potion, was a small duck, each of them different, numbering 15 in total. But that wasn’t all. More of the little yellow abominations were hiding in plain sight everywhere in the room. Another duck shaped chalk, this one green had appeared at the blackboard as well as a larger duck dressed as a teacher with a soft fabric attached to the bottom, an apparent replacement for the blackboard rubber that had mysteriously disappeared with the rest of his chalk. There were ducks in cauldrons, ducks on stools, ducks in empty glass jars, ducks propped up on textbooks, and even ducks levitating in the archways of the room. And almost every single duck was different. This was clearly more than just a prank from Potter alone. The boy was quite talented, but even he wouldn’t have been able to create such a disturbance as this one without being noticed.

And for a moment, he lost his cool, slamming his door open to find his year 7 N.E.W.T students, a blend of the best potions students from all four houses, waiting for admittance to class. But having been under his tutelage for so long, and now being in an atmosphere where they could see Snape as more of a mentor than a professor, his demeanor hardly intimidated them at all. “Something wrong, Professor?” a Slytherin asked, all too innocently from his spot against the wall.

He glared at the small class of 12 students, and answered with a growl, “We’ve got work to do. In! The lot of you.” The students filed in as usual, and set to work on their own, paying no mind to the ducks littered around the room. In fact, they acted as if they were not there. As his favorite class of students buzzed around the classroom, engaged in their own potions research and projects, some even went so far as to walk straight into the ducks dangling in midair. Ducks were upset from shelves as potions ingredients were removed and brought to desks. Ducks let out pitiful quacks as they were sat on. A few ducks were even given a full facial treatment of potions being stored in otherwise empty containers, leaving the pathetic looking objects floating in a number of strangely smelling colored liquids.

On the day went, and with each class of students came more ducks. And each class of students went on pretending the ducks were not there. It was a level of self-discipline Severus thought he would never live to see in any of his students and here they were demonstrating it over something as menial as a prank with muggle bath toys. By the end of the day, Snape had more ducks in his room than he had students pass through. There were ducks in costumes, ducks in professional attire (both muggle and magical), ducks of different colors, ducks in an array of patterns and designs, ducks wearing stunning quidditch fan makeup, and to his greatest annoyance, ducks that even sounded like ducks.

Deciding to forget the ducks for now, he cleaned up the remainder of the supplies for the day, putting away the last few cauldrons and mortar and pestles until they would be needed again the next day. Sometimes, he did prefer to clean his room with good old fashioned grunt work, a much more therapeutic process than waving a wand. Once his room was back to his standard of clean, he made up his mind to get some grading done before the great hall would open for dinner.

Returning to his desk, he was met with one last really long line of ducks. These ducks were as vibrant and various as the rest of them had been but each of them had something in common: a large Green or Silver letter. When lined up, the ducks spelled out a message: H-A-P-P-Y B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y P-R-O-F. S-N-A-P-E!

The last of the ducks was sitting next to a note folded in half to stand on its own with a familiar, messy scrawl. Sitting down, he picked up the note and opened it:

> _Professor Snape,_
> 
> _A few of my friends helped me put together this birthday gift for you. It was really their idea; it’s come to my attention that our N.E.W.T. students in particular have come to admire you as a mentor and have explained to me that they think you’re secretly a teddy bear on the inside but need to be shown a little love. So, of course, I was eager to help. I know you don’t typically make a fanfare of your birthday, but everyone deserves to have a bit of fun. If you animate them, they’ll even make a nice classroom management army. I hear ducks can be quite intimidating when they chase you down. Or maybe that’s Geese…_
> 
> _Anyway, thank you for being a role model these last few years as I’ve learned how to be the best teacher I can be. Despite our rough history, I admire your strength and courage, and I am so grateful for the friendship we have now. I bet mum is over the moon to see her best friend and son looking out for each other and I consider myself a better person because of the things you’ve taught me both now as a professor, and even when I was on the other side of the desk._
> 
> _Happiest of Birthdays,_
> 
> _Harry_


End file.
